Ukip’s Nigel Farage: Nail-biting night to Independence Day

It is Nigel Farage’s moment of glory. Britain has voted to leave the EU. As it became increasingly clear that Remain could not win, the excited Ukip leader gave a jubilant speech to Leave supporters and waiting reporters:

“Ladies and Gentlemen – dare to dream that the dawn is breaking on an independent United Kingdom. I hope this victory brings down this failed project and leads us to a Europe of sovereign nations, trading together, being friends together, co-operating together.

“And let’s get rid of the flag, the [EU] anthem, Brussels and all that has gone wrong. Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day!”

As the Ukip leader called for David Cameron to resign immediately and a national holiday for Independence Day, pictures and video showed Farage looking ecstatic with the result.

From Monster Raving Loony to Independence Day

This has been quite a bounce-back for Mr Farage. Just over a year ago, despite his party winning over three million votes at the General Election, he failed to win a seat in the House of Commons. He resigned as the election results emerged on the Friday, only to un-resign a week later and stay on as leader.

Indeed, Nigel Farage has failed to be elected to parliament seven times. In the 1994 Eastleigh by-election, he gained 952 votes, just 200 more than Lord Sutch, who gained 783 standing under the Monster Raving Loony party.

Yet on Friday morning, the referendum he forced the Prime Minister to stage, on the cause he’s fought for years, has seen a historic success.

On top of that, Nigel Farage bet £1,000 of his own cash on this result. He’s a richer man this morning.

Not all good news for Nigel…

The night has not been without its bumps however.

Conceding and unconceding

Eight hours before his triumphant victory speech, at 10pm, NigelFarage conceded the Brexit campaign may be beaten and Remain “will edge it”. A very different mood from 4am Farage who said, “Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day”.

Backtracking

Nigel Farage also admitted that despite leaving the EU, the UK won’t be able to give £350m to the NHS. “That was a mistake for Vote Leave to say that,” he said.

Another comment that may come back to haunt him are those he made to The Mirror in May, saying: “In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. If the Remain campaign win two-thirds to one-third that ends it.” However now Remain has lost 51.9 per cent to 48.1 per cent, it remains to be seen whether he will stick to this line.

“Crass” comments

The Ukip leader was labelled insensitive and crass by some after he claimed a Brexit victory was achieved “without a single bullet being fired”. His comments came eight days after Jo Cox was shot dead by a man who gave his name as “Death to traitors, Freedom to Britain”.

“Let June 23 go down in our history as our independence day”

Nigel Farage

Not that united

Ukip’s only MP, Douglas Carswell, was not very complimentary about Mr Farage. Exiting the Leave HQ, the Clacton MP said:

“This is really serious stuff here, and I think frankly the less we hear from Nigel over the next few weeks and months the better.

“This is the national interest, the people have spoken. Making party-political points like that having earlier this evening said we were going to lose, changing your mind – frankly – we need to grow up a little bit and make sure we’re talking about the national interest.

“David Cameron is Prime Minister, David Cameron will remain Prime Minister, David Cameron won a mandate – I’m not his biggest fan – but he has a duty to stay in Downing Street, to oversee this and make it happen. And that will happen.

“What we need to do is make sure we keep our heads and we act in the national interest, and not in the narrow partisan interests of any one party.”

iNews

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